Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he will be present options to the White House for dealing with budget cuts, as informed by the recent–yet still unreleased–Strategic Choices and Management Review.
Hagel, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) National Convention in Louisville on Monday, said officials will have to “fundamentally reshape defense institutions that were designed for different strategic and budgetary realities and times.” He announced four “principles” that will guide the realignment: prioritizing the Pentagon’s missions and capabilities around its core duty of defending the country; maximizing the military’s combat power; preserving military readiness; and honoring the sacrifice of military personnel.
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To prioritize the core missions and capabilities, Hagel said, the Pentagon must grapple with sequestration, the $500 billion decade-long budget cut that started in March. While President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2014 budget proposal for the Pentagon does not factor in the sequestration cuts, lawmakers appear nowhere near ready to agree on a plan to stop the funding reductions. The Pentagon recently completed a Strategic Choices and Management review that looked at the defense budget under multiple funding scenarios, including sequestration.
“Going forward, informed by the Strategic Choices and Management Review that I initiated four months ago, the (Defense) Department will prioritize how we match missions to resources,” Hagel told the VFW audience Monday. “The president must be assured that the options we present to him, the options he has to protect our country and defend our national interests, are ready and real.”
The Pentagon has not revealed the results of the Strategic Choices and Management Review. Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday that military officials “haven’t made any final decisions…on the specifics of announcements for the results” of the review.
Hagel, in Louisville, said sequestration “is an irresponsible process and it is terribly damaging,” and held out hope that lawmakers will come to a policy resolution to stop it. But he said Pentagon officials “have to prepare our institution for whatever comes ahead.”
He noted how, as a result of the strategic-choices review, he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey directed a 20 percent reduction in the budgets for their headquarter staffs, and the military services are expected to make comparable reductions. He also cited steps the Pentagon has taken in recent years to increase efficiency, accountability and savings in acquisition and procurement programs.
“However, (the Department of Defense) DoD will not be able to meet its budgetary savings requirements just through more efficient operations and headquarters reductions,” Hagel said. “It will require far more. “ He said Pentagon officials “must find savings everywhere in our budget.”
To avoid a “prolonged” crisis with insufficient military readiness, Hagel said he has “given clear guidance to the services.” It says “they should not retain more people, equipment, and infrastructure than they can support and can afford to keep trained and ready,” he said.
“This will require careful balancing,” the defense secretary said, saying that “strengthening readiness ultimately will demand that we address unsustainable growth in personnel costs, which represent half of the Defense Department’s budget right now, and crowds out vital spending on training and modernization.”
Hagel criticized lawmakers who oppose Pentagon reforms and cost-saving measures for political reasons, saying such actions do not “help our men and women in uniform, especially when these savings can be used to fund readiness and modernization.”
“This will require Congress joining DoD in a partnership of difficult choices, priorities and decisions,” Hagel said about strengthening readiness by address personnel costs. “Not easy. It will take some courage.”